Now possible to upgrade award seats.

[Mr_Orange]

I have received an email about it. I hadn't seen AusBT's coverage. I doubt I'll be using it since I don't book Y awards.

 

[ReLoad]

You really need to be desperate to request an upgrade from an economy classic award to higher class.

Makes a SYD-HKG classic economy award one-way upgraded to business class costing a total of 82,000 QFF points where as a business class award booked initially is only 60,000 QFF points.

Personally do not see this as an enhancement. In fact it's a trap. Hope no one gets confused and thinks this is a good deal and wastes their points on an upgrade.

you bet!

 

[QFFHntrGthr]

I can see this will be handy in the short term when on the A332 and not knowing if the J cabin has the new suites at the time of booking the award seat or the refurb bird substitutes at the last moment.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

You really need to be desperate to request an upgrade from an economy classic award to higher class.

Makes a SYD-HKG classic economy award one-way upgraded to business class costing a total of 82,000 QFF points where as a business class award booked initially is only 60,000 QFF points.

Personally do not see this as an enhancement. In fact it's a trap. Hope no one gets confused and thinks this is a good deal and wastes their points on an upgrade.

Agree - this was exactly the route I was looking at - QF is charging a premium of 22K points.

What we really want is the ability to get a confirmed upgrade at the time of booking. But it seems Qantas only 'listens to passenger feedback' when it suits them.

 

[JohnK]

What are people's thoughts with regard to upgrade pecking order with the introduction of these upgrade requests? I'm thinking it may add an extra layer at each QFF tier (e.g. CL Revenue > CL Classic > P1 Revenue > P1 Classic > WP Revenue, etc.), or... is it likely to be more convoluted than that, with tiers intertwining with revenue and fare buckets and the Bid Now offers all over the place? Debate.

I am going to guess classic award upgrades are going to trump any other upgrades.

Did you see the example above posted by Pleb Status? The upgrade cost from economy classic award is more than a business class award outright.

 

[Danger]

So a PER-SYD Y award is 18k:



And in J it's 36k:



But if I want to purchase a Y award and then upgrade to J it will cost me 53k points in total:



What an absolute load of rubbish.

(Incidentally, the website is still a pile of manure:

)

 

[serfty]

I have found the 'sweet spot' with the new classic award upgrade availability.

Zone 8 business classic reward (U) - 96,000pts (+ taxes).

Zone 8 business upgrade (X->U) - 100,000pts (+45,000pts +taxes for the X award).

Ha! That's the first one I looked at as it's been my most frequent redemption.

145K +++ ... 1k more than a classic in First ..

I really can't see myself using this ...

 

[trixydoza]

I really can't see myself using this ...

We're obviously not the target audience.

To QF's credit, they at least made it quite easy to see what bad value the whole thing is.

 

[Buzzard]

I agree- it doesn't seem like a good use of points, except if you really want to upgrade and a Classic Award Seat isn't available. Even then, for example;
SYD-JFK one way Economy Classic Award is 60,000
SYD-JFK one way Business Classic Award is 128,000

Upgrading from Economy Classic to Business is 124,000

So 184,000 vs 128,000- hmmmm

In other words, you are giving your Y seat back and buying a J seat at a 4,000 point discount.

 

[RAM]

I agree- it doesn't seem like a good use of points, except if you really want to upgrade and a Classic Award Seat isn't available. Even then, for example;
SYD-JFK one way Economy Classic Award is 60,000
SYD-JFK one way Business Classic Award is 128,000

Upgrading from Economy Classic to Business is 124,000

So 184,000 vs 128,000- hmmmm

For those not so mathematical...

184,000 = initial SYD-JFK one way Economy Classic Award @ 60,000 PLUS Upgrading from Economy Classic to Business @ 124,000

vs just redeeming the SYD-JFK one way Business Classic Award @ 128,000

Seems Q is enhancing their profits once again at the uneducated customer's expense - certainly not an ethical approach? Misleading/deceptive almost?

 

[opusman]

In the past I have had domestic classic awards booked in Y because there was simply no J availability at time of booking. Asked about an upgrade in the lounge and was declined even though there was space available. Now presumably an ODU would be possible. I see this as a positive "enhancement"

 

[NM]

The benefit here is about availability. While it may cost less point to book the business class award outright, with availability the way it often is, it may be better to at elast book an economy award and hope for an upgrade later.

 

[Moindardt]

I would say this is a great improvement. Probably 95% of international flights have a Y rewards seat but no J. At least you can get on the plane and enter the lottery. Another situation is if you don't have the points now but will before the flight. At least you can guarantee your seat. I know a lot of NB pax who would use this. They have never even seen a J seat available and quite happy to just not pay for the tix. If they get the upgrade.. Bonus!

 

[anat0l]

Seems Q is enhancing their profits once again at the uneducated customer's expense - certainly not an ethical approach? Misleading/deceptive almost?

You could argue the same thing about opening a points store and selling items for points, which is poor value for money. Same thing about having the Points Plus Pay option. Or even the bid for upgrades option. So what? A lot of business profit is about taking advantage of the incompetence, inconvenience, ignorance, incapability or laziness of others. If you think you are so aggrieved about it, go write up a complaint to send to the ACCC or your local competition commission.

Incidentally, this would appear to be the only way to possibly muscle in an international W or J seat without needing to purchase a better than Red e-Deal fare. If you could see the W or J availability, of course you would be better off grabbing that seat rather than play this upgrade path. Alternatively, if you, for whatever reason and out of necessity/desperation, book a Y fare, you could keep watching the W or J availability and then jump on it, paying the change fee, when it opens up.

However, if this never comes through, then if you really don't want to spend your time in Y, then you could lodge an upgrade and possibly be able to avoid that. By that point, however, it's probably not too likely. And if you were a WP who might have had a good chance of getting an upgrade, then you might have had a good chance to request the opening of a W or J seat by calling Qantas in the first place. More so if you were a P1, as they can book awards in limited revenue buckets.

If you were a SG then you might have some chance of getting one of the last seats available for upgrades, though suffice to say there would be some reflection as to whether it was better to just have paid the cash differential between the sale fare (or rather, the residual cash component of the Classic Award) to the lowest available upgradeable Economy fare, compared to fronting up the points for the Classic Award base fare. For PS and lower, the chances of netting an upgrade are likely very low, especially NBs, so those Bronzes on "huge stashes of points" for whatever reason will still not be any sort of significant threat to higher tier members who rely on upgrades.

I'd say this broadly has limited application in terms of value, but I could possibly envisage some people will try it out due to desperate circumstances.

Putting aside the poor economics, I don't know if this system can be used to improve the chances of netting premium seats for those who normally travel in a group more than one person.

 

[esseeeayeenn]

Incidentally this is no help at all for those of us stuck on EK metal.
No international upgrades out of PER or ADL.
And bugger all premium award seats available.

 

[Pushka]

Emirates can be very good to high status Qantas folk. I usually pick EK even when Qantas planes fly. Never get upgraded on Qantas.

 

[Kiwires]

Requesting Upgrade on Classic Flight Reward Bookings

Got an e-mail today introducing ability to request upgrade on Reward Bookings.
Tried it out on a booking I made in August last year and it showed the correct number of points, but for all passengers listed on the booking ref. It's 3pax x 54,000 points from Reward Economy to Business Class, which I believe is a great price as the Business Class fare listed on Qantas is about $4.5k each. I paid about $323 each for taxes and stuff when booking the seats.
Is it possible to request an upgrade for only 1 passenger? Would be a real treat for my partner.
I'll call the Help Desk tomorrow and see if a manual request makes any difference.
I checked the seat availability on ExpertFlyer and can see 2 seats still free for the March 10 QF29 Flight from MEL-HKG. Would have liked the return flight but no seats available on that leg.
Thanks in advance.

 

[esseeeayeenn]

Re: Requesting Upgrade on Classic Flight Reward Bookings

Generally no, it's not possible to upgrade only one PAX if more than one are on the same PNR.
It may be possible to separate the bookings but they would probably charge a change fee for that.

 

[melbkate]

Re: Requesting Upgrade on Classic Flight Reward Bookings

I got this email and don't understand what the difference is... couldn't you do that before anyway? Is it just the points amount that has changed? Thanks guys!

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: Requesting Upgrade on Classic Flight Reward Bookings

The Sydney Morning Herald thinks its just peachy. " The Qantas upgrade passengers have been waiting for"